Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Cavemen: The TV Show

TV SHOW: Cavemen

Source: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SC8beowrA2I

I chose this tv show because it deals with stereotyping of certain people, in this case, cavemen. The portion of this clip shows that the cavemen were believed to all have long shaggy hair and facial hair. This show was inspired by the Geico insurance company commercials which always ended with “So easy that a caveman can do it”. In this excerpt of the episode, the cavemen are just having casual conversation while two of them are playing boxing in Wii Sports, a video game on the Nintendo Wii videogame system. The combined stereotype of how a caveman typically looks, and that cavemen are not educationally advanced to supposedly do difficult tasks, they are portrayed in the show and the commercials as simple minded, “dumb”, and hairy looking people.

This media example can be tied to various articles that dealt with stereotyping of certain races, such as the African Americans and various descents of Asian Americans. Specifically, the site which contained the different caricatures with the Chief Wahoo face and the facial differences between those who were Indian, African American, Jewish, Chinese, Irish, and other various stereotypes would be closely related to what the Cavemen show portrays. Based on assumptions, the cavemen’s features were decided to be hairy, with long shaggy hair, facial hair, and normally speak in broken English or grunts. As for their characteristics, they were believed to be not very intelligent, living in caves (as their name suggests), most likely wearing skin hide as clothing, carrying around a club. Overall, they were very simple creatures, almost to be presumed as behaving more like a beast or animal than human. The outward appearances are more clearly distinguished in the Geico commercials than the TV show, where it suggests how cavemen were to be like if they were living in today’s society and norms. Their outward appearance of clothing and living conditions are of today’s society, but their physical features still clearly resemble those to be of a cavemen stereotype. Basically, how the cavemen are portrayed in the TV show and the commercials, the person who did the caricatures could easily create one to resemble the cavemen.

I believe that the cavemen are represented very stereotypically in the commercials and in the television show. Though clearly, the show was made to be a comedy, portraying how a caveman would fit into modern day society. It is clear that adopting our clothing and style of living is not a difficult task, which is basically changing one’s culture. On the other hand, something that cannot be changed is a person’s physical features. Like the Japanese, African Americans, and other minorities, they are easily distinguished by their outward physical appearances, not by what clothes they wore or what part of town they lived in. Even the way they act can easily be changed and adopting by just observing one’s surroundings. In the television show this holds true, where their physical features are still intact with the shaggy hair, facial hair, and overall, just hairy and messy looking.